Professor Quillibrace was quietly polishing his spectacles when Mr Blottisham hurried into the Senior Common Room carrying a weathered walking guide.
"Professor!"
Quillibrace looked up.
"You appear unusually enthusiastic."
"I've inherited a mountain."
"I beg your pardon?"
"My uncle left me this."
Blottisham held up the book triumphantly.
"It contains every route he ever climbed."
"How generous."
"He wrote notes in the margins."
"Indeed?"
"'Best view in Britain.'"
"'Nearly fell here.'"
"'Worth every blister.'"
Blottisham looked delighted.
"So now it's my favourite mountain."
Miss Stray looked over the top of her notebook.
"Have you climbed it?"
"No."
"Seen it?"
"No."
"Touched it?"
"No."
"But Uncle Cedric absolutely adored it."
Quillibrace smiled.
"So the mountain mattered greatly."
"Exactly."
"And now..."
Blottisham nodded confidently.
"...it matters to me."
Miss Stray closed her notebook.
"Does it?"
Blottisham hesitated.
"Well..."
"I admire it."
"Certainly."
"I respect it."
"Naturally."
"I know an extraordinary amount about it."
"Quite."
Another pause.
"But..."
Quillibrace waited patiently.
"...I'm not entirely sure it matters."
The room became pleasantly quiet.
Miss Stray eventually asked,
"What would happen if the guidebook disappeared?"
"I'd be annoyed."
"And if the mountain disappeared?"
Blottisham looked genuinely shocked.
"That would be dreadful."
"Why?"
He stopped.
"I..."
Another pause.
"I don't actually know."
Quillibrace leaned back.
"My dear Blottisham, your uncle climbed that mountain."
"He did."
"He became exhausted."
"Frequently."
"He became frightened."
"According to page forty-three."
"He became joyful."
"Page eighty-seven."
"The mountain entered his life."
Blottisham nodded slowly.
"And mine?"
"You inherited his descriptions."
Blottisham looked down at the worn pages.
"So I inherited..."
He searched for the words.
"...his meanings."
Miss Stray smiled gently.
"But not necessarily his reasons."
Blottisham frowned.
"Surely the reasons are written down."
"Some are."
"So why aren't they enough?"
Quillibrace reached for the guidebook.
He read aloud.
'Reached the summit just before sunrise. Worth every aching step.'
He closed the book.
"What exactly have you inherited?"
"The sentence."
"And?"
"My uncle's opinion."
"And?"
Blottisham thought for a long time.
"Not..."
He looked out of the window.
"...the sunrise."
Nobody spoke.
Eventually Miss Stray said,
"Language preserves remarkable things."
"It does."
"It carries memories."
"Yes."
"It carries discoveries."
"Yes."
"It even carries wisdom."
"Often."
"But perhaps..."
She paused.
"...it cannot carry the living importance those things once possessed."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"So books don't inherit experiences."
"No."
"They inherit organised meanings."
"Precisely."
A robin landed on the windowsill.
Blottisham watched it for a moment.
"I wonder whether the robin has favourite places."
Miss Stray smiled.
"I suspect it does."
"Does it write guidebooks?"
"I rather doubt it."
"So its favourite tree matters enormously."
"Probably."
"But it cannot explain why."
"No."
Blottisham laughed.
"So birds have mattering without maps."
Quillibrace nodded approvingly.
"And humans?"
"We have maps about things that matter."
Blottisham suddenly looked alarmed.
"Professor!"
"Yes?"
"I've just realised something."
Quillibrace waited.
"A library contains millions of things that once mattered."
"It does."
"But the library itself doesn't care about any of them."
"No."
"The books don't."
"No."
"The shelves don't."
"No."
"The catalogue certainly doesn't."
Quillibrace smiled.
"I have often suspected as much."
Blottisham looked around the Common Room.
"So perhaps..."
Another pause.
"...meaning can be preserved without anyone presently caring."
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
"Perhaps."
"But eventually someone must care again."
Blottisham nodded slowly.
"Otherwise the meanings just..."
He searched for an image.
"...sit there."
Quillibrace's eyes brightened.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"I think you've just distinguished a museum from a civilisation."
The three were silent for a while.
Outside, a group of students crossed the quadrangle, arguing animatedly about something none of them seemed likely to resolve before dinner.
Eventually Blottisham spoke again.
"I've been thinking about language."
"Dangerous, but continue."
"If someone inherited every book ever written..."
"Yes?"
"...they might know almost everything humanity has ever said."
"They might."
"But would they know..."
He hesitated.
"...what humanity found worth saying?"
Neither Quillibrace nor Miss Stray answered immediately.
At last Quillibrace spoke.
"They would inherit the conversation."
"Yes."
"But whether they inherited..."
He glanced at the old walking guide.
"...the reasons the conversation began..."
A pause.
"...is another question altogether."
Blottisham closed the guidebook very carefully.
"I think..."
He smiled.
"...one day I really ought to climb Uncle Cedric's mountain."
Miss Stray looked up.
"Why?"
He considered the question.
"So that..."
Another pause.
"...it might stop being his favourite place..."
He smiled again.
"...and begin becoming mine."
Quillibrace stood and reached for his coat.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"I believe you have just explained the difference between inheriting meaning..."
He opened the Common Room door.
"...and allowing meaning to become significant."
Outside, beyond the college walls, the hills waited patiently.
The guidebook knew every path.
The mountain knew nothing of guidebooks.
And somewhere between the two, a walk still remained to be taken.
No comments:
Post a Comment